KEHRE and EREIGNIS:A Prolegomenon to Introduction to Metaphysics

Thomas Sheehan

inA Companion to Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics

edited by Richard Polt and Gregory FriedNew Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000,

pp. 3-16 and 263-274

Interpretations of Heidegger often fail to distinguish between two very different matters -- onthe one hand “the turn” (die Kehre), and on the other hand “the change in Heidegger’s thinking” (dieWendung im Denken), that is, the shift in the way Heidegger formulated and presented hisphilosophy beginning in the 1930s. Failure to make this distinction can be disastrous for understandingHeidegger, and the danger becomes more acute the closer one gets to texts like Introduction toMetaphysics , where both the “turn” and the “change” begin to come into their own.1

The first issue, the Kehre or “turn,” is emphatically not an alteration in Heidegger’s thinking,not an episode that could be dated to a period in his philosophical career. Rather, it is one name amongmany for the abiding topic of Heidegger’s work: the radically inverted meaning of being, grounded infinitude, that stands over against the metaphysical ideal of being as full presence and intelligibility. Theturn is indeed a kind of movement, but not the movement that Heidegger’s thought underwent in the1930s. Rather, Heidegger associates the turn with Ereignis (usually translated "appropriation"), andspecifically with the way Ereignis operates: “Die im Ereignis wesende Kehre.”2 The turn is theinner movement of Ereignis whereby (a) finitude opens a clearing in human being (b) in which entitiescan appear as this or that.

The second issue, the “change in thinking,” refers to a shift in how Heidegger formulated andexpressed that inner movement of Ereingis. It is a change in das Denken/Sagen der Kehre.3 Ifthe turn refers to Heidegger’s central topic -- the giving of being in connection with the opening up ofDasein -- then the “thinking and saying of the turn” refers to Heidegger’s efforts to articulate that stateof [p. 4] affairs. And as a sub-set of that, “the change in thinking” refers to Heidegger’s shift inorientation from the transcendental-horizonal approach of 1926-28 to the seinsgeschichtlich(dispensing-of-being) approach of the remainder of his career. But this shift in orientation is not the turnitself. The distinction here is between the Kehre -- the inner movement of Ereignis -- and a change inhow Heidegger expressed that movement.4

In his famous letter to William J. Richardson (April, 1962) Heidegger acknowledged “eineWendung in meinem Denken,” “a change in my thinking,”5 and to this day the best analysis of thatshift in orientation remains Richardson’s majestic Heidegger: Through Phenomenology toThought. That book definitively proved that the breakthrough from the earlier to the later Heideggertook place in his lecture “Vom Wesen der Wahrheit,” first delivered in December of 1930, and thatIntroduction to Metaphysics , the lecture course of summer 1935, clearly indicates that “HeideggerII has taken full possession.”6

Richardson takes pains to distinguish between (1) Heidegger’s focal topic, die Sache desDenkens (which Heidegger explicitly identified with the Kehre operative in Ereignis) and (2) whatRichardson calls the “shift of focus” or “‘reversal’ in manner and method”7 that unfolded in Heidegger’swork in the 1930s as he continued pursuing that single topic. If Heidegger characterized his professional

career in the phrase “auf einen Stern zugehen,” then the Kehre operative in Ereignis was the“one and only star” that guided his journey, not any twist or turn along the way.8

But this crucial distinction is not always maintained in the scholarship. The shift of focus towhich Richardson refers is what many Heideggerians erroneously call “the Kehre in Heidegger’sthinking,” a confusion that flies in the face of Heidegger’s insistance that

First and foremost the Kehre is not a process that took place in my thinking andquestioning. It belongs, rather, to the very issue that is named by the titles “Being andTime”/“Time and Being.” [. . .] The turn operates within the issue itself. It is notsomething that I did, nor does it pertain to my thinking only.9

The present essay, which is intended as a prolegomenon to a fresh reading of Introduction toMetaphysics , attempts to sort out what Heidegger means by the turn operative in Ereignis. (Ireserve for another occasion a discussion of the “change in thinking” that took place in Heidegger’swork in the 1930s.) The essay focusses on the meaning of Ereignis that Heidegger developed inBeiträge zur Philosophie: Vom Ereignis (1936-1938) and from that vantage point looks back toHeidegger’s interpretation of the pre-Socratics in Introduction to Metaphysics (1935).10

Although, as Richardson correctly argues, 1935 marks the official debut of [p. 5] the laterHeidegger, nonetheless important details still had to be worked out. Introduction to Metaphysicscertainly does give evidence of Heidegger’s changed approach to the meaning of being, but nowhere inthat lecture course does Heidegger thematically explain the Kehre operative in Ereignis, nor do thoseterms, with their technical meanings, even appear in the text. Instead, Heidegger elaborated the Kehreand Ereignis indirectly and unthematically via interpretations of Sophocles, Parmenides andHeraclitus. It would take him at least another year to make Kehre/Ereignis the focus of explicittreatment, and that first happened in his Beiträge zur Philosophie. Only there did the turn operativein Ereignis move to center-stage and the corresponding change in Heidegger’s presentation of thattopic get locked in.

In what follows I argue that Heidegger’s focal topic was not “being” (the givenness oravailability of entities for human engagement) but rather what brings about being, namely Ereignis,the opening of clearing within which entities can appear as this or that. This clearing occurs whenDasein -- which I translate as “openness” --is opened up by its own finitude. But neither Ereignisnor the turn is an event in the usual sense of the term (much less an event that occurred in Heidegger’sthinking) but rather the presupposition of all human events. The essay then argues that Ereignis wasalmost -- but not quite -- envisioned by the early Greek thinkers, and it concludes that in the 1930sHeidegger changed his orientation but not his central topic.

1. HEIDEGGER’S TOPIC WAS NOT “BEING,” EITHER IN ITS TRADITIONAL ONTOLOGICAL SENSE OR IN A

PHENOMENOLOGICALLY TRANSFORMED SENSE.

In order to sort out what “the turn operative in Ereignis” is, we must first be clear about whatHeidegger’s topic was and was not. We begin with two negatives: (1) Heidegger’s fundamental topicwas not “being” tout court (the is-ness of whatever is) and (2) it was not a phenomenologicallyreinterpreted being (being as the givenness or availability of entities for human engagement).

In the first place Heidegger’s focal topic was not “being” (das Sein) in any of its traditionalphilosophical meanings. That is, it did not coincide with the three overlapping ways in which classicalmetaphysics had treated being, namely as A. ontological: any entity’s

! thatness (existence: not-being-nothing) ! whatness (essence: being this or that) ! howness (mode: being in this way or that) [p. 6]

B. transcendental: any entity’s trans-generic status as ! something (res) ! one (unum) ! distinct from others (aliquid) ! desirable (bonum) ! knowable (verum)11

C. theological: the highest entity’s state of perfect self-coincidence, ! not only between its thinking and the object of its thought,12

! but also and above all within itself.13

But likewise Heidegger’s central topic was not “being” in a phenomenological sense. It is truethat Heidegger’s first step in retrieving the unsaid from the classical tradition was to see that, in all theabove instances, the being of entities is implicitly some form of the presence of entities: not merely theirpresence-to-themselves or their presence-out-there apart from human beings, but their presence toand availability for possible human engagement -- their humanly specific (“ad hominem”)givenness and accessibility. In this implicit phenomenological sense, the being of entities is their ability tobe of concern to human beings, that is, to be significant, understandable, usable. Thus in what follows,the term “givenness” always means “humanly specific givenness,” and I use it interchangeably with“availability” and “accessibility” -- i.e., usability, understandability -- to name the being of entities.14

One of Heidegger’s major achievements was to have rendered that implicit state of affairsexplicit, by phenomenologically shifting the meaning of JÎ gÉ<"4 from an entity’s “being-out-there” toits “appearing-as” (n"\<gFh"4, Erscheinung15), i.e., its intelligibility in the broadest sense.16

Throughout his work Heidegger insisted that, properly understood, JÎ Ð< (whatever-is) is JÎ Î< ñHï80hXH (whatever-is as accessible) and that “being” means not the mere ontological thereness ofentities but their givenness as the available.17 This change is visible in Heidegger’s reinterpretation of@ÛF\"/Sein (an entity’s being) as B"D@LF\"/Anwesen (an entity’s presence/givenness to possiblehuman engagement), in keeping with the principle “Being as the givenness of entities concernsDasein.”18 Thus das Sein des Seienden = das Anwesen des Anwesenden = º B"D@LF\" J@ØB"D`<J@H = the givenness/availability/accessibility (hence the usability and understandability) ofwhatever is. The realm of givenness-itself (i.e., the field of possible concern) is what Heidegger called“world,” and the apriori human engagement with that realm is what he called “being-in-the-world.”19 [p.7]

Heidegger found this phenomenological notion of being to be the dominant, if implicit, view inancient Greek philosophy. In Introduction to Metaphysics , for example, he argues that one of theearliest names for the appearance of entities was nbF4H. The emergence (nbg4<) that this Greek wordindicates is not some pre-human appearance of entities, their coming-to-be prior to or apart from thereceptive openness that is human being. Rather, nbF4H refers to the givenness of entities within JÎ<@gÃ<, and nbg4< names the emergence of such givenness in correlation with that receptive openness.20

Thus in Introduction to Metaphysics Heidegger equates nbF4H and ï8Zhg4".21 And frombeginning to end, he argued that the givenness of entities requires a human site -- a “dative” -- in orderto occur at all.22

Nonetheless, being as the givenness and availability of entities was not Heidegger’s fundamentaltopic. In either form -- whether as the mere-thereness (@ÛF\") of entities, or as their givenness(B"D@LF\") -- being is still that which makes entities be as they are, either in the form of theirontological thatness, whatness, and howness, or in the form of their phenomenological emergence,stable appearance, and availability as this or that. Both of these issues lie within the confines ofmetaphysics and its ontological difference (entities-in-their-being).23 Thus even when Heideggerphenomenologically reinterpreted the various instances of “is” as so many forms of “is-present-as,” hestill had broached only die Leitfrage, the guiding question of metaphysics. This serves, at best, as theantechamber to the Grundfrage, the fundamental question that reaches beyond metaphysics to thetopic of Heidegger’s own thought.24

2. HEIDEGGER’S OWN QUESTION WAS: WHAT BRINGS ABOUT BEING AS THE GIVENNESS OR AVAILABILITY OF ENTITIES?

(A) Heidegger’s fundamental question was: What produces (B@\g4, läßt sein) availability?What enables being as B"D@LF\"/Anwesen to be given at all?25 And insofar as this givenness requiresa correlative human site in order to occur, the question becomes: What is responsible for thecorrelation between an entity’s givenness and the dative of that givenness? Whatever the answer tothat question may turn out to be, it is what Heidegger meant by die Sache des Denkens, the singletopic of his thought. Provisionally and heuristically we may designate this focal issue as “the enablingpower” that makes possible the correlation of givenness/being and its dative.

Heidegger calls this enabling power “ein drittes,”26 a JD\J@< J4 (Sophist 250b) or tertiumquid over and above both being as an entity’s givenness and the dative of that givenness. Insofar as itmakes B"D@LF\" possible, this enabling [p. 8] power is ¦BX6g4<" J­H B"D@LF\"H, “beyond” orother than being-as-givenness, in a way that is analogous (but only analogous) to what Plato called JÎï("h`<. This enabling power as tertium quid is also “beyond” the ontological difference, insofar as itlets that unity-in-difference come forth.27

(B) The fundamental question “What brings about givenness?” entails a preparatory-fundamental question: What is the dative of such givenness? Heidegger’s answer was: intentional oropen comportment.28 And the essence of such comportment he called “Dasein.”29

Heidegger insisted that Dasein, as the essence of human being and acting, means being-the-

Da .”30 Here the Da is understood as the open (das Offene).31 And for Heidegger the open is thesame as Lichtung,32 Welt,33 z!8Zhg4",34 being-as-such,35 the truth of being,36 difference,37 andEreignis.38 In other words the Da , taken in its fullness, is nothing less than die Sache des Denkens.It would be preferable, therefore, to avoid translating Dasein with variations on the word “there”(being-there, there-being, being-the-there). Rather, Dasein means “open-ness,” i.e., being-open andbeing-the-open in all the senses of “open” just listed.

For Heidegger the verbal emphasis in Dasein falls on the second syllable: Da-sein, beingthe open.39 The point is that the open is what we have-to-be (cf. zu-sein).40 But human beings do notopen up the open by their own subjective powers. Rather, the open is thrown- or pulled-open(geworfen/ereignet), drawn-out in such a way that, within that opened site, the availability of entitiesoccurs. This openedness is what Jean Beaufret had in mind when he interpreted Dasein asl’ouverture,41 and it is the meaning we intend when we render this key term as “openness.”

The word “openness” captures important meanings that Heidegger retrieved from AristotelianRLPZ for his own understanding of Dasein.42 In De Anima Aristotle argues that RLPZ is the veryessence of human being; that, qua receptive, it has its nature as possibility;43 and that, as this possibility,it is essentially open to and revelatory of the being of entities other than itself.

For Aristotle human RLPZ, whether in sense perception (JÎ "ÆFhV<gFh"4) or intellectualknowledge (JÎ <@gÃ<), is a BVFPg4< J4, a transcendental openness-to-receive.44 By its very nature,RLPZ is *g6J46Z (Latin, susceptiva), actively open to receive the forms (i.e., the being) of otherentities.45 This is what medieval philosophers meant when they described the soul as quod natum estconvenire cum omni ente.46 Precisely as such receptive openness, RLPZ in its noetic form isontologically structured to reveal the being of everything that appears: º RLP¬ Jè Ð<J" BfH ¦FJ4BV<J" (' 8, 431 b 21). In short, for Heidegger: [p. 9]

1. RLPZ, properly retrieved, is the openness that the being of entities requires (braucht) in orderto be revealed: Ò J`B@H gÆ*ä< (' 4, 429 a 27-28).47

2. The very essence of RLPZ is to “belong to” (zugehören: to get its raison d’être from)being.

3. And that essence consists in letting-be-seen the being of all entities: Ò <@ØH gÉ*@H gÆ*ä< (' 7,432 a 2).

(C) The tertium quid that makes possible the correlation of (a) the givenness of entities and(b) intentional comportment as the dative of this givenness -- the central topic of Heidegger's thought --goes by a host of titles, all of which, in spite of their distinct nuances, are fundamentally the same: Da,Welt, Offene, Zeit, Lichtung, Ereignis, Kehre, Seyn, Sein, Ermöglichung der Offenbarkeitdes Seienden, and the list goes on.48 We emphasize again: None of these titles directly names beingas the givenness/availability of entities (º B"D@LF\" J@Ø B"D`<J@H, º ï8Zhg4" J@Ø ï80h@ØH),much less as the mere ontological thereness of entities (JÎ gÉ<"4 J@Ø Ð<J@H). What these titlesdesignate is not the availability of entities but what brings that about. They refer not to B"D@LF\"but to its origin. What, then, is this “enabling origin” of givenness?

3. HEIDEGGER’S ANSWER TO HIS FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION WAS: EREIGNIS , THE OPENING OF A CLEARING IN HUMAN BEING.

These two moves -- the phenomenological interpretation of being as the givenness of entities,and the thematization of open comportment as its dative -- were only preparatory to raising thefundamental question concerning the tertium quid that makes possible the correlation of the two. Forthat, Heidegger focussed on the dynamics that bring together givenness and human being, andspecifically on the reciprocity of needing and belonging. This reciprocity (Gegenschwung49) betweenthe fact that givenness needs a dative (= das Brauchen) and the fact of the dative’s belonging togivenness (= das Zugehören) is what Heidegger means by das Ereignis, and it is the central topicof his thought.

Heideggerians usually describe this reciprocity as the “relation between being and Dasein.”Precisely here, in the way the story of being is generally told, lies the danger of a majormisunderstanding. It is an easy error to let an entity’s being-as-givenness slide back into its being-as-mere-presence, to reduce B"D@LF\" to mere @ÛF\". In turn this slippage fosters a quasi-

hypostasization of being, whereby das Sein is represented as something (however ethereal) that lies[p. 10] “out there” beyond entities, something we can “pursue” and possibly “relate to,” as if it were anontological object standing over against us.50

In the literature this bifurcated view -- Dasein on one side, being on the other -- has generallytaken two forms, with their apposite narratives: (1) the now passé “dominant Dasein” story, accordingto which human beings transcendentally “project” being, as if they themselves were the source of theavailability of entities, and (2) the still popular “Big Being” story, according to which Being Itself, lyinghidden somewhere beyond our ken, occasionally pulls back the veil and reveals Itself to properlydisposed human beings -- who in our days are, almost exclusively, paid-up Heideggerians.

Heidegger rejected both forms of this crude confabulation, whether Dasein projecting being,51

or being projecting itself to Dasein.52 His own story -- complex at first glance, but finally quite simple -- was that of Ereignis, the opening of the clearing.

Again: the specific issue in Ereignis is the reciprocity between “need” (das Brauchen) and“belonging” (das Zugehören): entities need a clearing in order to be understood as this-or-that, andthe raison d’être of human being is to belong to and be that clearing. This reciprocity is a matter ofgive-and-take: the clearing is “given” only when human being is “taken,” drawn or thrown into itsessential openness. Ereignis and Kehre are the same, and they are this movement of give-and-take,of belonging-and-needing:

1. EREIGNIS: The back-and-forth reciprocity of needing and belonging is what constitutesEreignis: “Dieser Gegenschwung des Brauchens und Zugehörens macht das Seynals Ereignis aus.”53

2. KEHRE: In turn, this reciprocity that constitutes Ereignis (“das in sichgegenschwingende Ereignis”54) is what Heidegger means by the Kehre, the back-and-forth-ness (reci-proci-tas) between belonging and needing: (a) Ereignis is the opening of aclearing in human being, (b) which is needed for the appearance of being, that is, for entities tobe understood as this or that. “Die Er-eignung des Da-Seins durch das Seyn und dieGründung der Wahrheit des Seins im Da-sein -- die Kehre im Ereignis.”55

The single topic of Heidegger’s philosophy is this giving of the clearing (= Geschick desSeyns) by the opening up of Dasein (= Ereignis ). This grounding movement is inherently“reciprocal” (“Gründen ist hier kehrig”56); it is the “reciprocal grounding of being and its dative”(“die kehrige Gründung von Sein und Da-sein”57), and as such it is the turn that operates at theheart of Ereignis. [p. 11]

In short, as openness is opened up (ereignet), there occurs givenness-as-such (“world” or“clearing”) as the possibility of the meaningful givenness of this or that entity. But this is only a formalindication of where the turn is located and how it is structured. The sketch needs to be fleshed out.What exactly is Ereignis, and how does it work?

4. THE CLEARING OCCURS WHEN OPENNESS IS OPENED UP BY ITS OWN FINITUDE.

What is it, finally, that opens up openness? Heidegger’s most formal answer is: “the self-

withdrawing” (das Sichentziehende58). The “self-withdrawing” is that which intrinsically withdrawsand, in the process, draws us out into §6FJ"F4H. As Heidegger put it: “What withdraws from us drawsus along with it by that very withdrawal.”59 This withdrawal is what he means by Ereignis: the innermovement that opens up openness. “Entzug ist Ereignis.”60

But what is it exactly that “intrinsically withdraws,” that “refuses to become present” because“its very essence” is to remain “hidden”?61 What is it that draws us out with it and, in the process, givesgivenness-as-such? It would be easy to fall back on the “Big Being” story and to hypostasize dasSichentziehende into “Being Itself” in its absential mode (“the Lethe”) and to have “It” (whatever “It”is62) do the drawing-out and the giving. But that would be only metaphysics in another form, and thusthe destruction of everything Heidegger stood for.

Heidegger’s own story is quite different. Its backdrop, which often remains implicit, is verytraditional and Aristotelian. Although in the final analysis Heidegger “undid” that tradition, he first tookcare to master it, and he recommended that Heideggerians do the same. “You would be well advised,”he told his students in 1952, “to put off reading Nietzsche for the time being and first study Aristotle forten to fifteen years”63 -- the way Heidegger himself did. It was out of that Aristotelian background,properly reinterpreted, that Heidegger elaborated his own story of Dasein and the movement ofEreignis.

In Aristotelian metaphysics, being (“reality”) is analogical: it comes in degrees, ranginghierarchically from the most perfect to the least. The degree of an entity’s being is the degree of itsperfection, and perfection (JÎ JX8g4@<) is measured by how far an entity has “come full circle” (cf.JX8@H as circle64) and “returned to” or fulfilled its essence. The highest degree of “having come fullcircle” is God’s perfect self-coincidence, which entails perfect presence-to-itself: <`0F4H <@ZFgTH.Short of God, everything else has being to the degree it approximates that ontological-cognitive closure.

[p. 12]Conversely, to the degree that an entity is still “open,” it is ontologically im-perfect. But human

being is essentially open (¦6FJ"J46`<). Never all-at-once and complete, it is ever in a state ofbecoming, always on the way to itself, but never arriving at full self-presence. Human being is definedby its constitutive lack-in-being -- what Being and Time called ontological “guilt” (Schuldigsein).Unable to overcome this essential lack, we can never complete the circle and become fully self-coincident.65

Our inevitable lack-in-being is our finitude, which opens us up. It “throws” or “pulls” us into ourineluctable becoming -- and thereby opens the open. Ereignis is not a matter of Big Being (“theLethe”) heteronomously “appropriating” us from some Beyond.66 Rather, it is our own intrinsic self-absence that draws us out into openness, into the movement of becoming, and thereby into thepossibility of understanding both givenness-itself (world) and the givenness of this or that entity.

Fated to be always open, human being is likewise fated to be exposed and receptive. Daseinis thrown into the necessity of being-present-unto,67 into needing the presence of other entities. But suchother-presence, like Dasein’s own self-presence, is never all-at-once and complete but always partialand imperfect. Condemned to Fb<hgF4H and *4"\DgF4H, we know only the finite intelligibility ofentities. Our lack-in-being makes it impossible for us to know by way of intellectual intuition, andmakes it necessary for us to know only through entwerfen auf. . . , “taking-as” or “projecting.” Wetake things as this or that, thereby see them to be such and so, understand that they are one thing oranother, and thus know their being.

On one hand this synthetic-differential knowing is a plus. Our very finitude -- thrown and only

thus able to “take-as” -- guarantees that we do understand the being of things. We are condemned toontology, which, before it is a thematic science, is a matter of relating to entities mediately through theirbeing-as. . . , rather than directly by intellectual intuition. On the other hand, such mediate knowledge ofentities is a defect, a mark of imperfection. “Ontology is an index of finitude. God does not have it.”68 Inany case, the finitude registered in our openness is what guarantees that there is being as the finiteavailability and understandability of entities.

Whether in the earlier language of thrownness and projection or in the later language ofEreignis and Geschick , it is Dasein’s own finitude or lack-in-being -- always “withdrawing,” ever“absent” and intrinsically “hidden” -- that makes possible the emergence of being-as-such.69 ForHeidegger, therefore, this lack-in-being, as the source of the giving of being, was from beginning to enddie Sache des Denkens, the issue most worthy of thought.[p. 13]

5. THE TURN IS NOT AN “EVENT” IN THE USUAL SENSE(MUCH LESS AN EVENT THAT TOOK PLACE IN HEIDEGGER’S THINKING)

BUT RATHER THE PRESUPPOSITION OF ALL HUMAN EVENTS.

Inasmuch as it is the same as Ereignis, the turn cannot be an event that took place inHeidegger’s thought. In fact, it is not an event at all in the usual sense of that term.70 One can certainlydate when Heidegger’s insight into the turn led to die Wendung im Denken, the reorientation ofhis thinking (namely, 1930-1938, and especially 1936-1938). But it is a very different matter with theturn itself. When Heidegger was asked how the turn took place (“ist geschehen”) within his thinking,he did two things. First he denied the premise: “There is no particular kind of happening connected withthe turn.”71 And then he located the turn where it properly belongs: “The supposed ‘happening’ of theturn,” he wrote, “‘is’ Seyn as such,”72 that is, Ereignis, the opening up of Dasein.73

It follows that the only way to understand how the turn functions (as contrasted with “when ittook place”) is from within the turn itself, i.e., from within one’s own Ereignis. “Es läßt sich nuraus der Kehre denken.”74 Insofar as Ereignis is the “most proper, exclusive, and ineluctable” factof human being, it constitutes the ultimate praesuppositum of everything we are and do.75 Whetherwe reflect on Ereignis or ignore it, whether we embrace it as the ground of our being or flee from it, itis always the presupposed. That is to say: Ereignis is that ultimate state of affairs which always-already (BD`) subtends (ßB`) and grounds (6g\:g<@<) human being: JÎ BD@(LB@6g\:g<@<BDäJ@<.76

One’s own grounding in this ultimate praesuppositum is what the early Heidegger called“thrownness” (Geworfenheit) and what the later Heidegger called “being-opened-up” (Ereignet-sein).77 So too the act of resolutely embracing that groundless ground is what the early Heideggercalled “taking over one’s thrownness” (Übernahme der Geworfenheit),78 and what the laterHeidegger called “taking over the fact of being-opened-up” (Über-nahme der Er-eignung).79

Thrownness and openedness are the same.80

Our already-opened-ness constitutes the ultimate circularity of human being and is the basis ofall the other circularities that characterize thinking and acting -- for example, the hermeneutical circle,the so-called “relativism” of Dasein, and so forth.81 It is thus the basis of the circular protreptic inwhich Heidegger’s thinking reaches its culmination: (X<@4’ @Í@H ¦FF\, “become what you essentiallyare.”82 This exhortation indicates the final goal of Heidegger’s work: to re-appropriate one’s

openedness in the sense of embracing the praesuppositum that makes one be human. This is theforce behind Heidegger’s [p. 14] frequently repeated admonition to let oneself be caught up inEreignis/Kehre rather than spending one’s career talking about the reorientation that took place inhis thinking.83

6. EREIGNIS WAS ALMOST -- BUT NOT QUITE -- ENVISIONED BY THE EARLY GREEK THINKERS.

As Heidegger sees it, there were strong intimations of Ereignis in pre-Socratic philosophy,and in Introduction to Metaphysics he finds virtually all the elements of this topic in the texts ofHeraclitus and Parmenides. Even these thinkers, however, failed to pose the fundamental question ofEreignis either explicitly or in its fullness. Let us consider the positive side first.

(1) In Heidegger’s view, Heraclitus and Parmenides were aware of the process wherebyentities become accessible, and they named this movement with such kinetic titles as ï8Zhg4", nbF4H,8`(@H: the unconcealing / emerging / gathering of entities into givenness.

(2) They further understood that being-as-givenness does not occur “out there,” independent ofhuman beings. They saw that it requires an open site in order to happen, and they understood thisopenness as belonging to (getting its raison d’être from) givenness.84

(3) They also were aware of the correlativity between the fact that givenness needs a dative(das Brauchen) and the dative’s belonging to givenness (das Zugehören).85 Parmenides expressedthat very state of affairs when he said that gÉ<"4 and <@gÃ< are JÎ "ÛJ ̀(fragment 5).

(4) Most importantly, beyond merely understanding the movement of entities into accessibility,Heraclitus also had a sense of the emergence of givenness-itself (die Bewegung des Erscheinens)and even intimated that the source of that movement-into-presence was a withdrawal-into-absence(das Sichverbergen). The text Heidegger principally has in mind here is Heraclitus’ fragment 123:nbF4H 6DbBJgFh"4 n48gÃ, which Heidegger interprets to mean: The source of the emergence ofgivenness-itself is, by its very nature, concealed.86

It would seem, then, that all the elements of Ereignis are present in these early texts. But notquite. What Heraclitus and Parmenides lacked was insight into the “fit” of these constituent elements.Beyond naming the correlation of givenness-itself and receptive openness, and apart from hinting that anintrinsically concealed absence is the source of being as givenness, these early Greek thinkers failed tosay exactly how that correlation happens or what brings about [p. 15] the emergence of givenness-itself. In other words, they lacked a developed and thematic grasp of how absence (finitude) opens uphuman being in such a way that, within that clearing, entities can be understood. As far as Heideggerwas concerned, the Greeks simply did not think Ereignis.87

7. CONCLUSION: IN THE 1930S HEIDEGGER CHANGED HISORIENTATION BUT NOT HIS CENTRAL TOPIC.

The reorientation of Heidegger’s thinking that became visible in Introduction to Metaphys-ics was far less dramatic -- and the difference between the earlier and the later Heidegger much lesspronounced -- than is usually suggested in the literature. In that regard Richardson’s assessment of thelater Heidegger’s relation to the earlier is as correct as it is succinct: “The difference: only one offocus.”88

Moreover, the reorientation was not due to Heidegger’s altering, much less surrendering, thetopic he originally settled on in Being and Time. As he told Richardson, the “change in thinking” wasnot an “about-face” (eine “Umkehr”),89 nor was it “a consequence of altering the standpoint ofBeing and Time, much less of abandoning its fundamental issue.”90 Rather, it was merely a filling out(Ergänzung)91 of the question posed in Being and Time. The reorientation took place, he said, as aresult of his “sticking with the issue-for-thought of Being and Time, i.e., inquiring into the perspectivethat Being and Time, at p. 39, had already designated by the title ‘Time and Being.’”92 Specificallythe reorientation was the result of Heidegger’s enhanced appreciation of how human being is opened upand, in particular, how thrownness -- which he came to read as being-opened-up -- always has priorityover projection.93

In other words, what did change (but more slightly than scholars usually allege) was only, asRichardson says, the “manner and method” of Heidegger’s approach,94 whereas what stayed the samewere both the question and the answer that Heidegger had in place by 1927.

The question was never focally about being or about human being, that is, about either side of asupposed noetic-noematic divide between the understanding of being (Seinsverstehen) and theunderstandability of being (Seinsverständlichkeit). The question was always about the apriori fit” ofthe two, the tertium quid that brings together and thus makes possible both givenness and its dative.Inasmuch as this fit is das transcendens schlechthin,95 it is beyond or other than what it bringstogether. In 1943 Heidegger listed some names for what his question was always about: the “meaning,”“truth” or “openness” that makes it possible for us to understand entities in their being.96 [p. 16] “DasEreignis” and “die Kehre im Ereignis” were only two in a long line of titles for what mustalways already be the case if givenness and its dative are to come together at all. But the varioustitles aside, the question remained the same.

And so did the answer. In both the earlier and the later Heidegger, the “giving” of being aspresence requires the “taking” of Dasein by absence, that is, the opening of human being by finitude.Before the 1930s Heidegger described this movement of give-and-take as the interface ofGeworfenheit and Entwurf: being thrown-open as grounding the possibility of taking-as. During the1930s Heidegger began describing the same issue as the interplay of Ereignet-sein and Es-gibt-Sein: being-opened-up as the ground for understanding the being of entities, Ereignis as makingpossible Seinsgeschick . But at no stage in his thinking did Heidegger conceive of the opening up ofthe open as an achievement of subjectivity.97 Rather, he always saw the open as grounded in Dasein’sbeing opened up by its own finitude.

***

Introduction to Metaphysics stands on the brink of the full-blown reorientation thatHeidegger’s thought would undergo between 1936 and 1938. Delivered as a lecture course one yearbefore the term “Ereignis” moved to center-stage, the Introduction does not thematically explainKehre or Ereignis for themselves. Nonetheless, those issues are there without the titles -- forexample, in Heidegger’s discussion of the bivalent reciprocity between das Brauchen (being’s needof its dative) and das Zugehören (the dative’s belonging to being). Likewise, Dasein's nature asthrown-open-ness is present in Heidegger’s allusions to homelessness and neediness (cf. Not,Nötigung).98 In this 1935 lecture course Heidegger was beginning to find the language that hadrepeatedly failed him in 1926-1928, when he first attempted the transition to “Time and Being.”99

Therefore, yes, Introduction to Metaphysics does represent a step forward in thinking andsaying the turn; however, such thinking and saying is not the turn itself. And yes, it does represent a shiftin Heidegger’s presentation of his abiding central topic. But in the end, Introduction toMetaphysics simply allowed Heidegger’s thinking to catch up a bit with the single issue he spent hislife pursuing.

End of text.Endnotes follow.

1. Einführung in die Metaphysik, ed. Petra Jaeger, Gesamtausgabe, Band 40, (Frankfurt amMain: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983). Hereinafter the various volumes of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabeare abbreviated as: GA plus the volume number. Citations in these notes frequently refer to texts bypage and line. The line-count does not include the “header” or any empty lines on the page but doescount the lines of section titles.

2. “. . . die Kehre, die eben das Wesen des Seins selbst als das in sich gegenschwingende Ereignisanzeigt”: GA 65, §140, 261.25-26. “Das Ereignis hat sein innerstes Geschehen und seinen weitestenAusgriff in der Kehre”: §255, 407.7-8. Cf. (1) the Kehre operative in Ereignis: “Die im Ereigniswesende Kehre”: §255, 407.8. Cf. “die (im Ereignis wesende) Kehre”: GA 9, 193, note “a” = MartinHeidegger, Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998),148, note “a.” Compare within GA 65: (2) the Kehre in Ereignis: §10, 30.2-3, §13, 34.10-11, §22,57.10, §141, 262.3-4; §146, 267.12, §197, 320.19, §202, 325.9-10, §255, 407.6; (3) the Kehre ofEreignis: §190, 311.4, §217, 342.25, §226, 351.22, §227, 354.9-10; (4) the Ereignis of the Kehre:§190, 311.13-14; (5) Ereignis and its Kehre: “Ereignis und dessen Kehre”: §11, 31.18-19, and “DieEr-eignung in ihrer Kehre”: §217, 342.22.

3. “das Denken der Kehre”: cited from Martin Heidegger’s “Vorwort” (hereinafter cited as “Vorwort”)to William J. Richardson, Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought (The Hague:Martinus Nijhoff, 1963): xvii.25 and 28. Also “[das] Sagen dieser Kehre”: GA 9, 328.3 =Pathmarks, 250.3.

4. Cf. “. . .eine Wendung. . . , die seinen [d.h. des Denkens] Gang der Kehre entsprechen läßt”:“Vorwort,” xix.27-28. [p. 264]

5. “Vorwort,” xvii.25 (see also Richardson, Heidegger, 243, n. 86). Cf. “eine Wandlung desDenkens”: “Vom Wesen der Wahrheit,” GA 9, 187.21-22 = Pathmarks, 143.33; and “Wandel desFragens,” ibid., 202.4-5 = Pathmarks, 154.18.

6. Richardson, Heidegger: “breakthrough”: 243.17; “Heidegger I becomes Heidegger II”: 254.12;“With EM [= Einführung in die Metaphysik] Heidegger II has taken full possession”: 296.15.

7. Richardson, Heidegger, respectively 243.19 and 624.28 (“shift of focus”) and xxvi.17 (“reversal”).

8. “Auf einen Stern zugehen, nur dieses. / Denken ist die Einschränkung auf einen Gedanken, der einstwie ein Stern am Himmel der Welt stehen bleibt”: GA 15, 76.8-11 (Martin Heidegger, Aus derErfahrung des Denkens, second edition, [Pfullingen: Neske, 1965], 7.6-9) = Martin Heidegger,Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row,1971), 4.8-11.Cf. “Jeder Denker denkt nur einen einzigen Gedanken”: Martin Heidegger, Was heißt Denken?(Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1954), 20.24-25 = Martin Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking? trans.Fred D. Wieck and J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 50.5.

9. “Die Kehre ist in erster Linie nicht ein Vorgang im fragenden Denken; sie gehört in den durch dieTitel ‘Sein und Zeit’, ‘Zeit und Sein’ gennanten Sachverhalt selbst. . . . Die Kehre spielt im Sachverhaltselbst. Sie ist weder von mir erfunden, noch betrifft sie nur mein Denken”: “Vorwort,” xix.1-3 and 6-8,emphasis added. “Vorwort,” xvii.29-31, shows that the pairing “Sein und Zeit” / “Zeit und Sein” doesnot indicate that the Kehre was to “take place” between Divisions Two and Three of Part One of SZ,but only that Division Three, “Time and Being,” was to spell out the Kehre.

Endnotes

[p. 263]

10. The term “die Kehre” made its debut on Thursday, July 12, 1928, in Heidegger’s course Diemetaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik: GA 26, 201.30, 35 = Martin Heidegger, TheMetaphysical Foundations of Logic, trans. Michael Heim, (Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, 1984) 158.30, 34. There it described the transformation (not “overturning”! cf. GA 9, 249.21-29 = Pathmarks, 191.8-15) of the received ontology of entities into a meta-ontology or metaphysicalontics (including the metaphysics of Dasein qua ontic), grounded in temporally interpreted being. Thistransformation is primarily a matter of the movement intrinsic to being-itself (its emergence as finite); andas early as 1926 Heidegger saw that the articulation of this “turn in being” would require a “change inthinking” (“Vorwort,” xix.25-27). Hence “die Kehre” and “die Wendung im Denken” weredistinguished from the beginning. By Beiträge zur Philosophie, 1936-1938, “die Kehre” hadattained the settled sense it would keep for the remainder of Heidegger’s career. viz., the innermovement of Ereignis: cf. GA 9, 193, note “a” = Pathmarks, 148, note “a”; GA 9, 328.4-11 andnote “d” = Pathmarks, 250. 4-10 and note “d”; GA 79, 69.9 (Wandel im Sein) and 71.17ff.: (Sich-kehren, Kehre, einkehrt, kehrige) (also in Die Technik und die Kehre, 38.11 and 40.21ff.) =Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, trans. William Lovitt (New York:Harper and Row, 1977), 38.12 and 41.11ff.; Vorträge und Aufsätze, 182.29-30 (II, 56.29-30) =Poetry, Language, Thought, 184.4-5. See also the author’s “Time and Being, 1925-27” in RobertW. Shahan and J. N. Mohanty, eds., Thinking About Being: [p. 265] Aspects of Heidegger’sThought (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), especially 184-186, 192-193,and 208-216.

11. Aristotle laid the basis for these trans-generic (“transcendental”) notions in the Metaphysics whenhe asserted both the universality of being (JÎ Ð< 6"h`8@L :V84FJ" BV<JT<: B 4, 1001 a 21) andthe fact that being is not a genus (@ÛP @Í`< Jg *¥ Jä< Ð<JT< «< gÉ<"4 (X<@H @ÜJg JÎ Ð<: B 3, 998b22). In keeping with that:

(1) Aristotle asserted the convertibility of gÉ<"4 and ï8Zhg4" at Metaphysics " 1, 993 b30-31: ª6"FJ@< ñH §Pg4 J@Ø gÉ<"4, @àJT 6"Â J­H ï80hg\"H (cf. the Scholastic axiom “ens etverum convertuntur”).

(2) He likewise asserted the convertibility of “being” and “one” at I, 2, 1053b 25: 8X(gJ"4 *zÆF"PäH JÎ Ñ< 6"Â JÎ ª<, and at 1054b 13: J"ÛJÎ F0:"\<g4 BTH JÎ «< 6"Â JÎ Ð< (cf. “unumconvertitur cum ente”: Summa Theologica I, 11, 1, resp.). At B 3 he argued that although “being”and “oneness” are the two characteristics most predicated of all things (JÎ Ñ< 6"Â JÎ «<. . . 6"JèBV<JT< :V84FJ" 8X(gJ"4 Jä< Ð<JT<: 998b 20, 21; cf. I, 2, 1053b 20-21), neither one of themcan be a genus of entities (998b 22, as above), because whatever might serve to differentiate eachspecies within that genus (i.e., each “specific difference”) would, of course, itself also have thecharacteristics of being and oneness (ï<V(60 :¥< (èD JèH *4"n@DèH ©6VFJ@L (X<@LH 6"Â gÉ<"46"Â :\"< gÉ<"4 ©6VFJ0<: 998b 23-24), and that would be illogical (cf. Topics Z 6, 144a 36--b 11).Therefore, “being” and “oneness” have to be transgeneric.

On that basis Thomas Aquinas in Quaestiones de veritate (in Quaestiones disputataeet quaestiones duodecim quodlibetales, III-V [Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1942]), qu. I, art. 1,responsio (pp. 2-3), spelled out three other transgeneric characteristics of an entity, each of which“adds” something over and above what “being” (“ens [quod] sumitur ab actu essendi”) says, not bysupplying what is not included in the notion of being, but by articulating a mode or manner of being thatis not explicitly expressed in the word “being” (“dicuntur addere supra ens, in quantum exprimunt ipsiusmodum, qui nomine ipsius [sc. ‘ens’] non exprimitur”). He argues that this “exprimere” can happen intwo ways: secundum quod consequitur omne ens A. in se:

1. res: quidditas/essentia entis 2. unum: indivisio entis

B. in ordine ad aliud (or: secundum ordinem unius ad alterum). (B.i) concerning “divisio unius ab altero”: 3. aliquid (“aliud quid”): divisio ab aliis (as vs. “indivisio entis”)(B.ii) concerning “convenientia unius entis ad aliud” (on the presupposition of

“aliquid quod natum est convenire cum omni ente,” viz., anima): 4. qua vis appetitiva: bonum: convenientia ad appetitum 5. qua vis cognitiva: verum: convenientia ad intellectumSee also Heidegger’s remarks on the analogia entis: GA 33, 26-48 = Martin Heidegger,

Aristotle’s Metaphysics 1 1-3, trans. Walter Brogan and Peter Warnek (Bloomington andIndianapolis: [p. 266] Indiana University Press, 1995), 21-39; also Martin Heidegger, SchellingsAbhandlung über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (1809), ed. Hildegard Feick(Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1971), 233.20-31 = Martin Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise on theEssence of Human Freedom, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1985),192.28-38. GA 42 omits these notes, which date from ca. 1941. On verum and ens see GA 65,§225, 349.30.

12. The formulae abound in Aristotle, Metaphysics 7: "ßJÎ< *¥ <@gÃ Ò <@ØH 6"Jè :gJV80R4<J@Ø <@0J@Ø: 7, 1072 b 19-20; J"ÛJÎ< <@ØH 6" <@0J`<: 7, 1072 b 21; §FJ4< º <`0F4H <@ZFgTH<`0F4H: 9, 1074 b 34-35; <`0F4H Jè <@@L:X<å :\": 9, 1075 a 4-5; @àJTH *z §Pg4 "ÛJ¬ "ßJ­Hº <`0F4H JÎ< ûB"<J" "Æä<": 9, 1075 a 10.

13. Cf.. ï*4"\DgJ@< Bê< JÎ :¬ §P@< à80<: Metaphysics 7 9, 1075 a 11.

14. (1) Re “accessibility”: See GA 65, §210, where Heidegger links Sein/ï8Zhg4" as theUnverborgenheit des Seienden (334.10) with Sein/ï8Zhg4" in Aristotle asZugänglichkeit/Freistehen des Seienden (333.28-29; cf. 332.23). (2) Re “ability to be ofconcern”: “Im Sein als Anwesen bekundet sich der Angang, der uns Menschen so angeht, daß wir imVernehmen und Übernehmen dieses Angangs das Auszeichnende des Menschseins erlangt haben”:Martin Heidegger, Zur Sache des Denkens (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1969), 23.33-36 = MartinHeidegger, On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 23.5-8;also Heidegger’s interpretation of “ereignet” as “concerné,” i.e., “getroffen, aufgerüht, umschlossen,”cited in Jean Beaufret’s contribution to Dem Andenken Martin Heideggers. Zum 26.Mai 1976(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977), 13.11-15. (3) Re “significance”: One of Heidegger’searliest titles was “das Bedeutsame” (Tuesday, March 18, 1919, Kreigsnotsemester, in the course “DieIdee der Philosophie und das Weltanschauungsproblem”: “. . .nicht Sachen mit einem bestimmtenBedeutungscharakter, Gegenstände, und dazu noch aufgefaßt als das und das bedeutend, sondern dasBedeutsame ist das Primäre, gibt sich mir unmittelbar, ohne jeden gedanklichen Umweg über einSacherfassen”: GA 56/57, 72.34--73.3.

15. “Sein west als Erscheinen”: GA 40, 108.31; indeed, “nur als Erscheinen”: ibid., 147.29-30.

16. On the Greek <@0J`< as “intelligible” in the broad sense, see the author’s “Nihilism:Heidegger/Jünger/Aristotle,” in Burt C. Hopkins, ed., Phenomenology: Japanese and AmericanPerspectives (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998), 287, n. 33.

17. The centrality of being as disclosure (esse ut verum esse) in the phenomenological tradition wasclear from the beginning: cf. Erich Przywara, “Drei Richtungen der Phänomenologie,” Stimmung derZeit, 115 (1928), 252-264, esp. 253-254. Heidegger states the thesis: “‘[D]as Sein selbst’ ist das Seinin seiner Wahrheit, welche Wahrheit zum Sein gehört, d.h. in welche Wahrheit ‘Sein’ entschwindet”:GA 9, 366, note “a” = Pathmarks, 278, note “a.” [p. 267]

18. “. . .das Sein als. . .An-wesen geht das Da-sein an”: “Vorwort,” xix.24-25, emphasis added. AlsoZur Sache des Denkens, 23.33-36 = Time and Being, 23.5-8.

19. Heidegger is clear that being-as-presence does not mean presence to a subject : “Das B"DV imgÉ<"4, das Her- und schon bei-wesen meint nicht, daß das Anwesende als Gegenstand auf uns, dieMenschen, zukomme”: Was heißt Denken? 144.32-33 = What is Called Thinking? 237.21-24.

Rather, it means accessibility for possible significance.

20. “Wenn jedoch zum Sein als nbF4H das Erscheinen gehört, muß der Mensch als Seiender diesemErscheinen zugehören”: GA 40, 148.15-16 (cf. ibid., 148.8-10). “Zu ihr [= nbF4H] gehörtVernehmung, ihr [d.h. der nbF4H] Walten ist Mitwalten von Vernehmung”: ibid., 147.33-34 (cf.147.22-25).

21. “Sein west als Erscheinen” and “nur als Erscheinen”: GA 40, 108.31 and 147.29-30. ButErscheinen is ï8Zhg4": “in die Unverborgenheit treten”: ibid., 147.30. But that is what nbF4H is: “das.. .aus dem Verborgenen sich bringen”: ibid., 17.18-19; cf. “Anwesen und Erscheinen”: ibid., 76.13.Therefore, Heidegger equates the two: “die ï8Zhg4" und die nbF4H, das Sein als Unverborgenheit”: ibid., 129.9-10; also 142.5. Cf. “nbF4H in sich schon ï8Zhg4", weil 6DbBJgFh"4 n48gÔ: GA 2,282, note “a”; “ï8Zhg4". . . als Grundcharakter der nbF4H”: GA 65, §186, 306.7 and §207, 329.24;“Hervorkommen-aus-der-Verborgenheit (im Sinn der nbF4H)” equated with “das Aufgehen-in-die-ï8Zhg4"”: GA 15, 331.5-8 = Martin Heidegger, Vier Seminare, trans. Curd Ochwadt (Frankfurtam Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977), 69.5-8.

22. Cf. “Die Wahrheit des Seins und so dieses [Sein] selbst west nur, wo and wann Da-sein”: GA 65,§ 261.22-23, which echoes “Allerdings nur solange Dasein ist, das heißt die ontische Möglichkeit vonSeinsverständnis, ‘gibt es’ Sein”: GA 2, 281.1-2, and “Sein aber ‘ist’ nur im Verstehen des Seienden,zu dessen Sein so etwas wie Seinsverständnis gehört”: ibid., 244.5-6.

23. “Denn diese [ontologische] Unterscheidung entspringt ja gerade einem Fragen nach dem Seiendenals solchem (nach der Seiendheit)”: GA 65, §132, 250.21-23.

24. Leitfrage, Grundfrage: GA 65, §2, 6.29-30, §34, 75.26-27 and 76.8; §193, 313.23-24. Cf. “.. . meine Philosophie, die nicht nur, wie alle Philosophie bisher nach dem Sein des Seienden fragt (l’êtrede l’étant) sondern nach der Wahrheit des Seins (la vérité de l’être)”: Heidegger’s private letter to JeanBeaufret, November 23, 1945, cited in Martin Heidegger, Lettre sur l’humanisme, 2nd edition, ed.and trans. Roger Munier (Paris: Aubier, Éditions Montaigne, 1964), 182.9-13. See “das Denken, dasdie Wahrheit des Seins zu denken versucht und nicht wie alle Ontologie die Wahrheit des Seienden”:GA 9, 380.23-25 = Pathmarks, 289.3-4.

25. “die Frage, inwiefern es Anwesenheit als solche geben kann”: Zur Sache des Denkens, 77.17-18 = On Time and Being, 70.9-10. Also “die vorgängige Ermöglichung der Offenbarkeit vonSeiendem überhaupt”: GA 9, 114.26-27 = Pathmarks, 90.32; “Grund und Zulassung der Seiendheit,”GA 68, 51.5. [p. 268]

26. Was heißt Denken? 147.19-20 = What Is Called Thinking? 241.10.

27. On “the enabling power”/das Tauglichmachende as JÎ ï("h`<, see GA 9, 228.10-11 =Pathmarks, 175.6-7 (also Ermöglichen, Ermöglichung: ibid., 228.8, 24 = Pathmarks, 175.4, 19).Compare “die Bedingung der Möglichkeit des Seinsverständnisses.”: GA 24, 405.12-13 =Pathmarks, 286.9-10. Concerning ¦BX6g4<" J­H @ÛF\"H (Republic VII, 509 b 9) and the worldas “das Umwillen” see: GA 26, 203-252 = Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, 159-195. Onontological difference: GA 65, §258, 423.27-424.23.

28. Verhalten: GA 9, 184.15-22 = Pathmarks, 141.22-28. In this passage Heidegger indicates the“intentional” or “revelatory” aspect of such comportment by the phrases “daß [das Verhalten]. . .je anein Offenbares als ein solches sich hält,” “offenständig zum Seienden,” and “[das] offenständigeBezug.” I am grateful to Professor Charles B. Guignon for helpful discussions on this point.

29. In Being and Time the “preparatory fundamental” question (GA 2, 24.2) was answered in PartOne, Division One (and extended into Division Two), while the “fundamental question” itself (dieFundamentalfrage: GA 2, 6.30; 37.8, etc.) was reserved for the unpublished Part One, Division Three,“Time and Being.”

30. “Es gilt, das Da-sein in dem Sinne zu erfahren, daß der Mensch das ‘Da’, d.h. die Offenheit desSeins für ihn, selbst ist, indem er es übernimmt, sie zu bewahren und bewahrend zu entfalten”: GA 15,415.10-13 = Vier Seminare, 145.10-13. Cf. “être le là”: Martin Heidegger, Zollikoner Seminare.Protokolle -- Gespräche -- Briefe, ed. Medard Boss (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann,1987) 157.7; hereinafter abbreviated as Zollikon. Also Heidegger’s private letter to Beaufret, inLettre sur l’humanisme, 182.29–184.3; “Der Mensch west so, daß er das ‘Da’. . .ist”: GA 9,325.20-21 = Pathmarks, 248.11-12; and “[D]as Menschsein als solches [ist] dadurch ausgezeichnet,auf seine Weise diese Offenheit [= das Da] selbst zu sein”: ibid., 157.31-32.

31. “das Da [ist] dort [in Sein und Zeit] bestimmt als das Offene”: Zollikon, 188.14-15. On “dasOffene” see also GA 9, 184.11, 184.25, 185.29, 187.32, and 188.21 = Pathmarks, 141.18,141.23, 142.26, 144.9, and 144.22; also Zollikon, 9.8, etc.

32. “das Da, die Lichtung”: GA 65, §193, 316.27. “Das Da-sein als die Wesung der Lichtung”: ibid.,§173, 297.25. “das ‘Da’, das heißt die Lichtung des Seins”: GA 9, 325.20-21 = Pathmarks,248.11-12; “das Da als Lichtung des Seins”: GA 9, 327.14-15 = Pathmarks, 249.22-23; “Wie istdas Da dort [in SZ] bestimmt als das Offene? Diese Offenheit hat auch den Charakter des Raumes.Räumlichkeit gehört zur Lichtung, gehört zum Offenen. . . ”: Zollikon, 188.14-15.

33. “[D]er Mensch west so, daß er das ‘Da’, das heißt die Lichtung des Seins, ist. [. . .] die Lichtungdes Seins, und nur sie, ist ‘Welt’” GA 9, 325.20-21 and 326.15-16 = Pathmarks, 248.11-12 and248.36-37.

34. “‘Da-sein’ bedeutet für mich nicht so sehr ‘me voilà!’ sondern, wenn ich es in [p. 269] einemvielleicht unmöglichen Französich sagen darf: être le-là. Und le-là ist gleich z!8Zhg4":Unverborgenheit -- Offenheit”: Heidegger’s letter to Beaufret, November 23, 1945, in Lettre surl’humanisme, 182.29--184.3. Also: “ï8Zhg4" -- Offenheit und Lichtung des Sichverbergenden”:GA 65, §209, 331.23 (title), and “Wahrheit west nur und immer schon als Da-sein”: §243, 390.20.

35. “Die Lichtung selber aber ist das Sein”: GA 9, 332.3-4 = Pathmarks, 253.1.

36. “das Da, die Lichtung als Wahrheit des Seins selbst”: GA 9, 336.27 = Pathmarks, 256.23-24.

37. “der Unterschied als Lichtung, als Ereignis.” Zollikon, 242.12-13. Cf. also the previous note.

38. Note the concatenation: “Sein, Wahrheit, Welt, Sein, Ereignis”: GA 9, 369, note “d” =Pathmarks, 280, note “d.” Cf. also the previous note.

39. “. . . die sinngemäße Betonung im Deutschen statt Dasein: Da-sein”: Zollikon, 157.7-8: and“Da-sein heißt in Sein und Zeit: da-sein”: ibid., 188.13-14.

40. See GA 2, 56.12, with note “d.” As regards the change of Zu-sein to Sein at GA 2, 56.8, seeEdmund Husserl, Psychological and Transcendental Phenomenology and theConfrontation with Heidegger (1927-1931), ed. Thomas Sheehan and Richard Palmer(Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997), 298, n. 45.

41. Jean Beaufret, Entretiens avec Frédéric de Towarnicki, second edition (Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1992), 17.26, 28.

42. Beaufret, Entretiens, 17.29--18.15; cf. GA 65, §193, 313.6-11.

43. òFJg :0*z "ÛJ@Ø [i.e., <`@L] gÉ<"4 nbF4< :0*g:\"< ï88z ´ J"bJ0<, ÓJ4 *L<"J`< (' 4,429 a 21-22), roughly: “. . . so that [in its capacity to receive] there is no nature of/for it [viz, <@ØH]except this: that it is in possibility.” I am grateful to Professor Richard Polt for clarifications on thismatter and for pointing out that the receptivity of <@ØH does not contradict its nature as ¦<XD(g4": cf. Ò(èD <@ØH ¦<XD(g4" (Metaphysics, 7 6, 1072 a 6).

44. JÎ (èD "ÆFhV<gFh"4 BVFPg4< J4 ¦FJ\< (B 11, 424 a 1) and JÎ <@gÃ< BVFPg4< J\ ¦FJ4< ( '4, 429 b 24-25). The Latin is pati quoddam: Thomas Aquinas, In Aristotelis librum de animacommentarium, ed. Angelo M. Pirotta (Turin: Marietti, 1925), respectively: liber II, lectio XXIII, p.182 (text) with p. 186 (no. 547), and liber III, lectio IX, p. 236 (no. 720). On the possibility that the J4is the object of BVFPg4< rather than an adverbial modifier, see Aristotle, De Anima , edited andtranslated by Robert Drew Hicks, Salem, New Hampshire: Ayer Company, 1976, 1988 (reprintedfrom the original 1907 edition), p. 412f.

45. JÎ *g6J46Î< Jä< "ÆFh0Jä< gÆ*ä< (#, 12, 424 a 18) and ïB"h¥H ñD" *gà gÉ<"4, *g6J46Î<*¥ J@Ø gÇ*@LH (' 4, 429 a 15). For susceptivus: Aquinas, In de anima , liber II, lectio XXIV, p.187, text (susceptivus specierum sine materia) with p. 188 (no. 551): and liber III, lectio VII, p. 224,text (susceptivum speciei) with p. 226 (no. 676: susceptivam speciei intelligibilis).

46. For example, Thomas Aquinas, De veritate,(Turin: Marietti, 1942), qu. I, art. 1, responsio p.3A. [p. 270]

47. Aristotle makes the point indirectly: 6"Â gÞ *¬ @Ê 8X(@<JgH J¬< RLP¬< gÉ<"4 J`B@< gÆ*ä<(ibid.).

48. All these constitute das transcendens schlechthin (GA 2, 51.9), which holds a placehomologous (and only that) to the transcendental in Husserl. (1) Further examples: Sinn des Seins,Temporalität des Seins, Entwurfsbereich des Seins, Offenheit, Als, Erwesung der Wahrheit des Seins,lichtende Verbergung, Ortschaft (J`B@H), Sammlung (8`(@H), Sein-lassen (B@\0F4H), Brauch (PDZ),Unterschied / Unterscheidung (*4"n@DV); cf. “verschiedene Namen für dasselbe”: GA 65, §209,331.24, and “Die Vielnamigkeit aber verleugnet nicht die Einfachheit” §6, 21.33-34. (2) Re “Zeit” as atitle for the Da/Lichtung: “Zeit als Vorname des Entwurfsbereichs der Wahrheit des Seins. ‘Zeit’ ist. . .Lichtung des Seins selbst”: Schellings Abhandlung, 229.4-6 = Schelling’s Treatise, 188.38-40;“die Er-eignung des Menschen in die Zugehörigkeit zum Sein und seiner Lichtung (‘Zeit’)”: GA 66,145.24-25; “die Zeit als der Vorname für die Wahrheit des Seins”: GA 9, 376.11 = Pathmarks,285.26-27. (3) Re Ermöglichung: “Die vorgängige Ermöglichung [= Ereignis / Seyn] der Offenbarkeit[= Sein / Seiendheit] des Seienden”: GA 9, 114.26-27 = Pathmarks, 90.32. (4) Re Unterscheidung:“Die ‘Unterscheidung’ als Charakter des Seins selbst; es west als unterscheidend, scheidendeinigendes”: Heidegger, Schellings Abhandlung, 216.29 = Schelling’s Treatise, 178.21-22.

49. GA 65, §133, 251.24, §141, 262.8, §164, 286.31, and 226, 351.22; also “die Kehre, die ebendas Wesen des Seins selbst als das in sich gegenschwingende Ereignis”: ibid., §140, 261.25-26. Onreciprocity (reci-proci-tas) cf. die herüber und hinüber schwingende Er-eignung: ibid., §242, 381.26-27.

50. “Sagen wir vom Bezug des Menschen zum Seyn und umgekehrt des Seyns zum Menschen, dannklingt dies leicht so, als wese das Seyn für den Menschen wie ein Gegenüber und Gegenstand”: GA65, §136, 256.1-4.

51. Heidegger glosses “Sein ist im Entwurf verstanden” (SZ, 147.30-31) with “Heißt aber nicht: Sein‘sei’ von Gnaden des Entwurfs”: GA 2, 196 note “c.” See also “Und demnach nicht ‘wir’ der Ausgang,

sondern ‘wir’: als ausgesetzt und versetzt”: GA 65, §144, 265.19-20; and “Das Seyn nichts‘Menschliches’ als sein Gemächte, und dennoch braucht die Wesung des Seyns das Da-sein. . . .”: ibid.§144, 265.30-31.

52. See Heidegger’s warning against the hypostasization of Sein/ï8Zhg4": GA 9, 442.21-22 =Pathmarks, 334.21.

53. GA 65, §133, 251.24-25. For the same thing expressed in terms of Zuruf and Zugehörigkeit seeibid., §191, 311.26; §217, 342.21-26; §239, 372.14-15; §242, 380.16; §255, 407.30-31.

54. GA 65, §140, 261.25-26.

55. GA 65, §141, 262.1-3; ibid., §195, 318.22-23.

56. GA 65 §140, 261.29.

57. GA 65 §144, 265.26-27. [p. 271]

58. Was heißt Denken? 6.7 = What Is Called Thinking? 9.24. Also GA 65, §129, 246.17.

59. “Was sich uns entzieht, zieht uns dabei gerade mit”: Was heißt Denken? 5.37 = What IsCalled Thinking? 9.13-14.

60. Was heißt Denken? 5.27 = What Is Called Thinking? 9.23, where the sentence ismistranslated “Withdrawal is an event,” as it also is in Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, revised andexpanded edition (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 374.17.

61. “Was sich entzieht, versagt die Ankunft”: Was heißt Denken? 5.25-26 = What Is CalledThinking? 9.1-2, with “das Sichverbergen ist das innerste Wesen” and “ist wesentlich”: GA 15,343.24 and 28 (= Vier Seminare 81.24 and 28).

62. “Das Seyn aber ‘ist’ über solches ‘Nichts’ hinaus nun nicht wieder ‘Etwas’”: GA 65, §164,286.22-23.

63. Was heißt Denken? 70.26-28 = What Is Called Thinking? 73.31-33.

64. On JX8@H as “circle” and “full circle,” see Richard Broxton Onians, The Origins of EuropeanThought (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 442ff.; also the comment at 443, n. 2,on Jg8gFn`D@H ¦<4"LJ`H (Iliad, XIX, 32f., with parallels): “The sense demanded by the variouscontexts is rather that of a complete year -- ‘full circle.’”

65. This reading of Schuldigsein as unovercomeable lack-in-being is based on GA 2, 375.6(mangelhaft), 376.18 (Nicht-Charakter), 376.33 and 34 (Mangelhaftigkeit, Nichtcharakter), 378.9(Nichtcharakter, geworfene, nicht insofern selbst der Grund seines Seins), etc.

66. Cf.“Wesung soll nicht etwas nennen, was noch über das Seyn wieder hinaus liegt, sondern wassein Innerstes zum Wort bringt, das Er-eignis, jenen Gegenschwung von Seyn und Da-sein, in dembeide nicht vorhandene Pole sind, sondern die reine Erschwingung selbst”: GA 65, §164, 286.29--287.2.

67. “Gegenwart im Sinne des Gegenwärtigens”: GA 2, 431.31.

68. “Denn Ontologie ist ein Index der Endlichkeit. Gott hat sie nicht”: “Davoser Disputation zwischenErnst Cassirer und Martin Heidegger” in Martin Heidegger, Kant und das Problem derMetaphysik, 4th, enlarged edition (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1973), 252.30-31 =Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics , 4th, enlarged edition, trans. RichardTaft (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), 175.35-36.

69. “Der Entzug aber ist des Da-seins. [. . . .] der Entzug. . .als die Schenkung”: GA 65, §168, 293.9and 16-17. Also “das Sichentziehende” as “höchste Schenkung”: §129, 246.17-19.

70. “Wir können das mit dem Namen ‘das Ereignis’ Gennante nicht mehr am Leitfaden der geläufigenWortbedeutung vorstellen; denn sie versteht ‘Ereignis’ im Sinne von Vorkommnis und Geschehnis --nicht aus dem Eignen als dem lichtend verwahrenden Reichen und Schicken”: Zur Sache desDenkens, 21.24-29 = On Time and Being, 20.29-33. [p. 272]

71. “Dieser [d.h., der Kehre] eignet keine besondere Art von Geschehen”: “Vorwort,” xxi.17-18.

72. “Das ‘Geschehen’ der Kehre, wonach Sie fragen, ‘ist’ das Seyn als solches”: “Vorwort,” xxi.16-17. The question that was put to Heidegger is recorded at ibid., xvii.9-11.

73. On the equivalence of Seyn and Ereignis cf. “Das Seyn aber ist zugleich hier begriffen als Er-eignis. Beides gehört zusammen: die Rückgründung in das Da-sein und die Wahrheit des Seyns alsEreignis”: GA 65, §195, 318.21-23.

74. “Vorwort,” xxi.17.

75. Compare being-unto-death as “Die eigenste, unbezügliche und unüberholbare Möglichkeit”: GA 2,333.32, with “Die Einzigkeit des Todes im Da-sein des Menschen gehört in die ursprünglichsteBestimmung des Da-seins, nämlich von Seyn selbst er-eignet zu werden. . .”: GA 65, §161, 283.10-12.

76. For BD@(LB@6g\:g<@<, see Damascius, De Principiis in the edition Traité des premièrsprinciples, ed. Leendert Gerrit Westerink, tr. Joseph Combès, 3 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres,1986-1991), III, 153.2; in the Ruelle edition: Damascii Successoris, Dubitationes et solutiones deprimis principiis, in Platonis Parmenidem, ed. Carolus Aemelius Ruelle (Paris, 1889; reprinted,Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1966), 2 vols., here I, 312.21

77. See “geworfener”/“er-eignet”: GA 65, §122, 239.5; “geworfen”/“er-eignet”: ibid., §182, 304.8;and “geworfene”/“zugehörig der Er-eignung”: ibid., §134, 252.24.

78. GA 2, 431.13 and GA 65, §204, 327.6-7.

79. GA 65, §198, 322.7-8. Cf. “Übernahme der Zugehörigkeit in die Wahrheit des Seins, Einsprung indas Da”: ibid., §197, 320.16-17.

80. “die Er-eignung, das Geworfenwerden”: GA 65, §13, 34.9.

81. “Die im Ereignis wesende Kehre ist der verborgene Grund aller anderen. . .Kehren, Zirkel undKreise”: GA 65, §255, 407.8-11. Cf. “Die gemeine Daseinsauslegung droht mit der Gefahr desRelativismus. Aber die Angst vor dem Relativismus ist die Angst vor dem Dasein.” Martin Heidegger,The Concept of Time [with German and English texts], trans. William McNeill (Oxford, UK:Blackwell, 1992), 20.15-17 = 20E.14-16.

82. Pindar, Pythian Odes, II, 72, in The Works of Pindar, ed. Lewis Richard Farnell (London:Macmillan, 1932), III, The Text, 56; and GA 2, 194.3.

83. “Statt des boden- und endlosen Geredes über die ‘Kehre’ [the scare quotes show that this refers to‘die Wendung im Denken’] wäre es ratsamer und fruchtbar, sich erst einmal auf den genanntenSachverhalt einzulassen”: “Vorwort,” xix.9-12. Such engagement is ultimately a matter ofEntschlossenheit or resolution: “es gilt eine Verwandlung des Menschseins selbst,” ibid., xxi.9-10, citingthe 1937/38 course, “Grundfragen der Philosophie,” GA 45, 214.18 = Martin Heidegger, BasicQuestions of Philosophy: Selected “Problems” of “Logic,” trans. [p. 273] RobertRojcewicz and André Schuwer (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994),181.7-8.

84. “Was der Spruch des Parmenides ausspricht, ist eine Bestimmung des Wesens des Menschen ausdem Wesen des Seins selbst”: GA 40, 152.30-32 (cf. also 149.15-16); “. . .weil das Überwaltigendeals ein solches, um waltend zu erscheinen, die Stätte der Offenheit für es braucht”: ibid., 171.32-34;“Wenn jedoch zum Sein als nbF4H das Erscheinen gehört, muß der Mensch als Seiender diesemErscheinen zugehören”: ibid., 148.15-16 (cf. 148.8-10). See: “So gehört der Mensch notwendig zu-,und hat seinen Ort in der Offenheit (und gegenwärtig in der Vergessenheit) des Seins. Das Sein aberbraucht, um sich zu öffnen, den Menschen als das Da seiner Offenbarkeit”: GA 15, 370.16-19 (= VierSeminare, 108.16-19); re “gebraucht” as “utilisé,” ibid., 370.11 (= 108.11).

85. Cf. Zu ihr [= nbF4H] gehört Vernehmung, ihr [d.h. der nbF4H] Walten ist Mitwalten vonVernehmung“: GA 40, 147.33-34.

86. ”Das Sichverbergen ist das innerste Wesen der Bewegung des Erscheinens“: GA 15, 343.24-25 (=Vier Seminare, 81.24-25).

87. ”Mit dem Ereignis wird nicht mehr griechisch gedacht”: GA 15, 366.31-32 (= Vier Seminare,104.31-32).

88. Richardson, Heidegger, 247.11.

89. “Vorwort,” xvii.19.

90. “Aber diese Wendung erfolgt nicht auf grund einer Änderung des Standpunktes oder gar derPreisgabe der Fragestellung in ‘Sein und Zeit’”: “Vorwort,” xvii.26-28. See also “Dadurch wird jedochdie Fragestellung in ‘Sein und Zeit’ keineswegs preisgegeben”: ibid., xix.28-29. In “Humanismusbrief”Heidegger had made the same claim not about die Wendung but about die Kehre: “Diese Kehre istnicht eine Änderung des Standpunktes [footnote: d.h. der Seinsfrage] von ‘Sein und Zeit’. . .”: GA 9,328.7-8 = Pathmarks, 250.7-8.

91. Cf. er-gänzt, Ergänzen, Ergänzung: “Vorwort,” xix.34-36.

92. “Vorwort,” xvii.29-31. (“p. 39” refers to SZ 39.39 = GA 2, 53.22.) Cf.: “Damit wird nicht gesagt,‘Sein und Zeit’ sei für mich selbst etwas Vergangenes geworden; ich bin auch heute noch nicht‘weitergekommen’, dies schon deshalb, weil ich immer deutlicher weiß, daß ich nicht ‘weiter’ kommendarf; aber vielleicht bin ich dem in ‘Sein und Zeit’ Versuchten um einiges näher gekommen”:Schellings Abhandlung 229.13-18 = Schelling’s Treatise, 189.6-9.

93. “Der Entwurf. . .nur Antwort auf den Zuruf”: GA 65, §21, 56.12-13; “[der Entwurf als die]Einrückung in das Offene, dergestalt, daß der Werfer des Entwurfs als geworfener sich erfährt, d.h. er-eignet durch das Seyn”: ibid., §122, 239.4-5; “die Entwurfung als geworfene und das will sagenzugehörig der Er-eignung durch das Seyn [p. 274] selbst”: ibid., §134, 252.23-25; “Im Verstehen alsgeworfenem Entwurf liegt notwendig gemäß dem Ursprung des Daseins die Kehre; der Werfer desEntwurfs ist ein geworfener, aber erst im Wurf und durch ihn”: ibid., §138, 259.30-32; “Ent-wurf. . .alsgeworfener”: ibid., §172, 295.123; “Der Werfer selbst, das Da-sein, ist geworfen, er-eignet durch das

Seyn”: ibid., §182, 304.7-9; cf. ibid., §258, 422.29-31. Also “Ausgesetztheit als offene Stelle”: GA 2,216, note “a”; and “Da-sein als geworfenem des (Wurfs)”: ibid., 244, note “a.”

94. Richardson, Heidegger, xxvi.17.

95. GA 2, 51.9, and note “a,” which equates this with Ereignis.

96. “Die entscheidende Frage (Sein und Zeit, 1927) nach dem Sinn, d.h. (S.u.Z. S. 151) nach demEntwurfbereich, d.h. nach der Offenheit, d.h. nach der Wahrheit des Seins”: GA 9, 210.31-32 =Pathmarks, 154.12-14. Cf. GA 65, §16, 43.25-26.

97. “Leistung der Subjektivität”: GA 9, 327.25-26 = Pathmarks, 249.31-32. Cf. GA 65, §180,303.22.

98. Homelessness: GA 40, 160.10ff., 176.2-4, 178.19, etc. Neediness: ibid., 171.32, 176.30,177.13-14, 178.15, 178.31-32, 181. 23-25, 183.2, etc.

99. “Der fragliche Abschnitt wurde zurückgehalten, weil das Denken im zureichenden Sagen [gloss innote ”b“: Sichzeigenlassen] dieser Kehre versagte [etc.]”: GA 9, 328.1-3 = Pathmarks, 250.1-3.

End of endnotes.